pasta and white beans with garlic-rosemary oil Featured

If you have a thing for chocolate, the world is your oyster. On this very site, 86 of the just over 800 recipes boast a significant chocolate component and entire sections of bookstores will be happy to fill in any cravings I missed. If you have a thing for bacon, the internet would be overjoyed to find you places to put it, zillions, even, although I’d proceed with caution before auditioning a couple. But if you have a thing for something slightly less of a prom king/queen ingredient, say, tiny white beans, well, it can be tough. It’s not there are nouses for them, it’s just that when you’re very much in love, there are never enough ways to be together. And if you’re me — someone who sometimes ups and makes a mega-pot of white beans just because you feel like it, presuming you’ll find things to do with them later — you sometimes end up scrambling, yanking down nearly every cookbook in your collectionbut still coming up bereft of uses outside the well-trodden soup-and-salad territory.

So tell me: What are you favorite uses for beans outside the ever-popular realm of chili, tacos, soup and salad? Really, I’m hankering for more inspiration. I ended up finding some — but never enough — in this month’s Bon Appetit, in a stack of pasta recipes you will find it impossible to choose among from Sara Jenkins of Porchetta and Porsena (and green bean salad, sigh) fame. I was so charmed by the short tubes of pasta with chickpeas, I made it almost immediately but maybe it was because I’ve overdone iton chickpeas this month, but I kept thinking it would be nice with something… daintier. And considering that it is an established fact (um, in Italy, where I suspect both my white bean and artichoke obsessions could roam free) that white beans, garlic, rosemary and olive oil are a combination sent from above, I had a hunch they’d be happy here too.

The result is a great pasta for this time of year, deeply comforting and hearty but not overly decadent. There’s no heavy cream or cheese, or dairy at all; there’s no bacon (I’m sorry) or even a pinch of meat. And you won’t miss any of these things because, like a certain soup I have missed immensely since last week, it’s the finish that makes the dish — in this case, a sizzling oil with not just garlic but freshly minced rosemary too. If you finish that with a few pinches of sea salt, oh boy. You’ll see. It’ll make a convert out of you too.

One year ago: Shortly!

Book Tour II: Just in case your missed the announcement a couple weeks ago, The Smitten Kitchen Book Tour marches on in February and March, with eight cities (hello, Atlanta/St.Louis/Minneapolis/Salt Lake/Denver/Raleigh/Montreal! plus an additional, awesome event in Brooklyn). I hope this means we finally get to meet.

For the pasta, I used pennete, because I thought it nicely matched the little white beans (Rancho Gordo’s Alubia Blanca). Sara Jenkins called for ditalini to go with chickpeas. You can use whatever you’d like — short tubes, even elbows, and canned beans are just fine here.

I streamlined the recipe a bit to reduce the number of bowls and pots used, to make things easier.

This makes a lot of pasta, because you’re using a whole pound plus two cans of beans, so it’s a great recipe to consider halving if you wish to finish it before spring comes.

Pulse onion, carrot, celery, whole garlic cloves, parsley, and red pepper flakes (to taste) in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat and add vegetable mixture to pot. (Quickly rinse, but no need to fully wash, food processor as you’ll use it again shortly.) Season generously with salt. Cook, stirring from time to time, until vegetables take on a bit of color, about 10 minutes. Add tomato paste (original recipe calls for 2T but we enjoyed it with 3) and cook it into the vegetables for another minute. Add 1 cup water or bean cooking liquid and use it to scrape up any bits stuck to the pot. Let simmer until liquid has almost disappeared, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add beans and 2 more cups of water (or bean cooking liquid) to the pot and simmer until the flavors meld, about another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta until al dente, or still a little firm inside. I know you didn’t ask for one, but can I insert an argument for al dente pasta here? The thing is, you don’t want your pasta to fully cook in the water. If you do, it won’t have any absorbency left to drink up and become with that delicious sauce. I have really found that finishing pasta in its sauce is the single thing that most swiftly improved the quality of my pasta dishes.

Reserve 1 1/2 cups cooking water from your drained pasta.

Transfer one cup of the bean mixture to your rinsed food processor and purée it until smooth, then stir it back into the sauce to thicken it. Add drained pasta and 1/2 cup cooking liquid to bean sauce and cook the mixture together, adding more pasta cooking liquid as needed, until the sauce coats the pasta, about 1 to 2 more minutes.

To serve: Heat remaining 1/4 cup olive oil in a tiny saucepan over medium-low heat with garlic and rosemary, until sizzling stops. Divide pasta between serving bowls and drizzle garlic-rosemary oil over each. If you’re us, you’ll finish this with a few flakes of sea salt. Eat at once.